moral of the story here don't give up on your dreams maybe next election cycle reconsider donating hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to your favorite corporate tool because you might just win an ambassadorship. the please please. please very hard to take a. look. at that or how to act with the terror threat there.

by now americans are used to absurd amounts of money flooding into political campaigns but the amount of cash recently spent on local elections in washington state's wacom county is shocking nonetheless is even though walk in county has a population of only two hundred thousand people this year nearly a million dollars an outside campaign donations flooded into the local election council and what all these outside campaign donors have in common while they're all connected to big coal is the walk in county is set to vote on a controversial new coal export facility in the coming years along the gross excess of coal in the u.s. to be shipped all over the world now amazingly all that money didn't make much of a difference as all four council seats were eventually won by environmentally friendly candidates but this county election is just a microcosm of the massive power big coal has and also illustrates how the federal government is doing everything in its power to facilitate the growth of the coal

industry so here to discuss all things coal i'm joined now by zoe carpenter of the nation magazine zoe thanks so much for coming on again thanks for having me zoe you just wrote an amazing exposé outlining the problems with this industry. the article argues that the massive export of cool unleashes more carbon emissions than the keystone pipeline would i mean that is appalling why is this the case so that's a that's a proposal next proposal this is to ship coal from the powder river basin in wyoming and montana through montana through idaho. and into washington oregon and to ports on the west coast of oregon and washington to go to china japan india and there are three terminals that have been proposed to be built and if they are built and they are operating at full capacity the amount of coal traveling through would be as much carbon pollution once it's burned as the keystone pipeline amazin your article also talks of the massive land grab and the environmental destruction that's already plagued these areas

a lab around what you saw on the ground firsthand during your investigation sure so the powder river basin is a huge area of wyoming and montana and it holds about forty percent of the nation's coal reserves it's the largest single source contributor to climate change and most of that coal is federally owned so the department of interior controls that leasing process and they've been leasing this coal for decades to big coal companies who have opened up large strip mines all across the region mostly in wyoming around a town called gillette in campbell county and we're seeing the water tables drop i spoke to a lot of ranchers who are very concerned about changes in the land over time these are people whose families have lived on this land for generations and generations and so they can really see the changes both from the coal industry and then from climate change serious seeing those two things kind of come to a head in this region and you also said the potentially more of a contributor to climate change then you know oil production and emissions is

really shocking you know we often hear about clean coal we hear that parroted all the time clean coal clean coal from the energy industry is that a myth i mean is there such a thing as clean coal you know at this point certainly not and we don't expect to see that the coal industry has. never really been forced to innovate partly because of this lease in process in the powder river basin where they're given access to call it blow market prices they have been forced to grapple with the extra costs of their pollution and so they have been forced to develop things like carbon capture storage and so we don't have those technologies ready to go coal is dirty from the way it treats its workers to the way it treats the a local environment and then of course to the global environment it's amazing that those aren't put in place already i mean you know environmentally sound things that at least could what you just said i mean it is amazing that these safeguards aren't plays you recently traveled of course as you said to investigate the government cool subsidies and this is the part that is really shocking and i think why. talk about the subsidy program with the coal industry in these days in particular

sure so it's helpful look at the history back in the one nine hundred seventy s. during the oil embargo the u.s. was sort of desperate for a source of domestic energy that could provide cheap electricity and so they looked to u.s. coal stocks to provide some of that and a lot of them are in this region of the powder river basin. and sentence federally owned the department of interior has a leasing process to give coal companies access to that coal so the way that they do that is it's a lease by application process so the coal companies basically nominate whatever land they want to say i want that you know several hundred thousand acres to mine the department of interior says ok we're going to hold an auction and the coal company bids and if it meets some hidden standard that the department of interior has set and they get the coal department the interior is charged with illegally they're obligated to charge fair market value but the way they develop fair market value is it's fraught with problems and so for decades taxpayers have been cheated of a fair return for this coal and the result of that is that coal companies have been

able to sell coal cheaply and that's depress the price of coal and made it much lower than renewables so it's been very difficult to develop renewable energy at the scale which we need in the country what is the u.s. demand to justify this overproduction of coal while they say that we have this resource and there is demand for it and it's benefiting the taxpayers but clearly it's not benefiting the taxpayers and now if certainly when you compare it with external costs of climate change and local pollution water degradation all of those things so i spoke to a spokesperson for the bureau of land management who manages the coal and she says well the purpose of the leasing program is it's the reason we lease the land is because the coal companies have asked for it and that sounds very much like catering to the coal industry to me like a lot of the players are benefiting you know the us taxpayer and of course the coal industry you mentioned subsidies for all. turn of energy but that they aren't able

to get to the place that coal is i mean if we have subsidies for wind and solar why haven't there been as much when why are they prevented i mean is it just that cools so much cheaper than them even though that they're subsidized you know will cost so much cheaper and i should i should make it clear that it's not technically a subsidy i think that the department of interior would quibble with that characterization and the experts that i spoke to argue that it basically amounts to a subsidy when you're giving someone below market rates for the coal but because of this leasing program because of these deliberate decisions to make coal effectively the energy the country's energy source we have an infrastructure that's locked into coal and that's never really been challenged until now and what's really challenging it now is the price of natural gas has dropped so we hear a lot about the war on coal and it is true the e.p.a. is tightening regulations on coal plants coal fired power plants significantly but it's also the war and was also just an economic fact that natural gas prices prices are declining much more quickly than coal prices are at this point and back to the

question of renewables we just don't have the kind of investment that we need to spur these projects to build the infrastructure we really need to have a national infrastructure for it and we don't have that investment and it just seems like why not now then when you know let's talk let's take a look but the last two presidential candidates and what their opinion is on. clinton told. this. by the way we could prove the drill. is please remember to take no excuse. we have two hundred fifty years of coal why would we do utility bills or people wonder how they're going to have a brighter future if they can't see how they can make it to the end of the next month. and mitt romney proves this message. that you hear that you know. dirty miners walking around standing behind romney you have obama saying clean coal i

mean what are we supposed to do when we have these majorly you know the democrat republican candidate for president last year both kind of you know proliferating that myth of clean coal and that this is necessary or coal is certainly a very powerful lobby and we see a lot of the coal state democrats are still well within their grasp politically but i think if you look to the evidence we're going to start to see some of those claims crumble there is not it's absolutely not true there's two hundred fifty years left of recoverable coal we are seeing the coal industry collapse in appalachian and they're leaving behind communities that are really devastated and there isn't coal that's left they can mine easily now and so everything is shifting more and more to the powder river basin because there is still recoverable coal there. and that raises the question what's going to happen to those communities once the coal companies pull out domestic demand is dropping that's why they're trying to push to asia but it looks like the demand from asia is going to peter out by two thousand and twenty also so then what happens to these communities that

really are dependent on coal and they really do rely on those jobs that's a that's a fair concern and we should be asking how we manage that transition and i would hope that political leaders would be asking those questions rather than just you know saying two hundred fifty more years i mean just in your opinion what do you think it will take to get that federal implementation of you know a grid for alternative and renewable energy when we're seeing the effect of the e.p.a. power plant rules i think those are can be really significant in trying to turn us towards renewables that's a deliberate decision to move the country away from call it would be great if the department of interior now caught up their policy in terms of the leasing to match the v.a. because they're at that disconnect. but have it mobilizing public private partnerships for renewables is really important jobs programs in the renewable industries but those kinds of things really would take some work on congress as part and we're really not seeing any interest especially in the house in promoting anything that has to do with environmental ism so. then we have to bring it back to the elections like in joaquin county

a lot of that money was actually mobilized by environmental asked. next gen climate action find out which is founded by tom sire a billionaire from san francisco is really working on trying to put climate on the ballot and figure out how we can elect leaders who will challenge big call and who will vote for investment in renewables right if we get that infrastructure for jobs and we can ship the jobs argument big oil big coal into where it needs to be thank you so much so a carbon information minister but i mean back on. coming up or being the latest on fukushima. the president of the boss and instead eric rosengren said that. morale improves low rates and bond buying will continue yes the beatings will continue until l'oreal improves so listen up you smelly consumer peasants and

rotting dead grounds because the said will continue to beat you to a bloody pulp intil you smile smile like we're all wal-mart greeters how they not been fired last year and spend spend spend like every man's mortgage debt is his castle.

live. live live live . this is obviously more for the latest because it's pink. women wanted to avoid rate they really needed to buy guns environ how to use them. this is the one that i want to go with them once again it's the field strength for women definitely the target of the gun lobby and one you don't kill them when the killing money but if somebody would just pick her. i've noticed that more and more and that's really scary marketing tactics which implies that women have some sort

of moral obligation to tell on guns to protect their family and young girls shoot out here too so we do have a pink or. more kids young kids choke on food than are killed by firearms if being armed made us safer in america we should be the safest nation on earth were clearly not the safest. least. lend. lend margy dot com is launching a special project to mark the appalling scale of violence in iraq. we want you to

know. dramas the truth be ignored. stories others who refuse to notice. food since changing the world lights next. to picture of today's leaves. from roads to close. up to the. t.v. . i . negotiations between the u.s. and iran are taking place in geneva an effort to relieve some of the worst economic sanctions that have had against the islamic republic even though

a deal has yet to be hammered out this is still huge it's the first time in over thirty years that leaders from these two countries are having direct talks however israel's bibi netanyahu is not as delighted despite the fact that this deal's far from finished he's been very vocal in his opposition to the u.s. negotiating with the wrong at all. got the deal of the century. and the international community got a bad deal this is a very bad deal. and it really is really utterly rejected and what i'm saying is shared by many many in the regions whether or not they express it publicly israel is not a blow. by this agreement and israel will do everything it needs to do to defend itself and to defend the security of its people all right all right we get it bibi you want to acknowledge that the deal if it if it is made that it's the geneva talks about iran's nuclear program several media outlets i'm running

a very interesting story one that suggests saudi arabia is one step away just one step away from getting their hands on a nuclear bomb that's right the b.b.c. reported earlier this week that according to a senior nato official saudi arabia has already paid pakistan for nuclear weapons the b.b.c. alleges these weapons are ready for delivery citing the former head of israeli military intelligence almost a odland who says that if the wrong got the bomb quote the saudis will not wait one month it will go to pakistan and bring what they need to bring so basically this is a threat because according to israeli intelligence if iran gets a bomb saudi arabia is soon to follow my god this is what the worry about a torana theocracy having nuclear weapons too. i don't freak out just yet it's important to note that this nuclear news hasn't been confirmed yet by the saudi government in fact the saudi embassy in london reminded the b.b.c. in a statement that the kingdom is a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and is working for

a nuclear free middle east pakistan's foreign minister also denied the claims calling the b.b.c. reports speculative the shittiest and baseless now i'm in no way trying to defend pakistan or saudi arabia what i am saying is that it seems highly unlikely that either nation would risk the diplomatic blow back of transferring these weapons so how does a story that seems like a bunch of hearsay and speculation man. yes in the first place well that starts to become clear when you consider the timing of the story remember right now there are highly significant talks going on in geneva about nuclear proliferation and the potential peace deals not sitting well with israel or saudi arabia apparently see according to former state department official mark. siegel that saudi arabia planted some of the evidence for the story as a means for putting pressure on the u.s. to be in firm and dealing with iran also the fact that this intelligence was initially gathered from israel precisely at the time of the geneva talks seems more

than just a coincidence after all who would benefit most to have media outlets running a story fear mongering the u.s. into taking a harder line over these negotiations yes israel and guess what country already has an arsenal of nuclear weapons already kick started a regional arms race and has time and time again below literally refused to comply with any non proliferation treaty peripheral aeration tree i cannot say that word i think at the point twist the truth to fit your agenda meanwhile all eyes away from the real peace to turn in the middle east that the real weapon of mass destruction . two weeks ago seven point three magnitude earthquake hit near japan's eastern coast

the same spot where a nine point zero earthquake hit in two thousand and eleven triggering a catastrophic meltdown at the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant thankfully last month's quake only resulted in small tsunamis and caused no damage but it did serve as a stark reminder of japan's continuing nuclear nightmare for the citizens living in and around fukushima and one japanese politician wants to make sure the country's top brass knows exactly what's going on there last week at a garden party hosted by japan's emperor politician taro yamamoto approached the emperor and headed him a letter outlining the horrific reality unfolding on the ground now this may not sound like a big deal to you but yamamoto's actions were extremely culturally forbidding and strictly against japanese protocol when it comes to interacting with the emperor is that although the emperor has no real political power and his role is largely symbolic he's still treated as a mere demigod and a pen and confronting him in such an off the cuff manner as sent shock waves of the

japanese media. has strongly stood by his actions. and handed a very limited to the emperor because i wanted him to know my personal feelings about the current situation on the ground in eastern japan there were children coming down with many health problems and there are people who are working in radioactive conditions who are just being you know what they say is the reality you know all of those controversial decision has been so severe that a parliamentary steering committee is currently deciding whether or not to punish him for politically exploiting the emperor given the seriousness of the situation it's no wonder why yamamoto's so urgently trying to get the attention of the most esteemed individual in japan so big props to him big props the alamodome for having the courage to smash japan's deep rooted taboos and tell the truth about the ongoing nuclear debacle that should be the world's top priority. the tokyo electric power company or tepco has announced it will finally began removing the radioactive

fuel rods from the site of the reactors artie's alexei he is on the ground in japan i first asked him to update us on the state of the fuel rods. and we understand that the tepco company the one which is running the whole new nuclear power ration at the fukushima daiichi power plant will have to remove more than one thousand spent fuel rods from the pools where these fuel rods are now being kept and judging by what the experts have been saying this is definitely a very big challenge first of all. the pools where those rods are kept there are some debris from the explosion inside those pools and they have to be removed using cranes and sometimes they have to be even removed using manual force and also this operation such kind of operations happen more than four hundred nuclear stations across the planet on every day basis but in the case of the fukushima daiichi

nuclear power plant of course. most of the automated equipment doesn't work and there is no chance of getting this equipment in whatsoever which is what makes this whole operation is even more risky that you cannot even hit one fuel rod against the other this may cause a nuclear chain reaction so as we understood from the tepco company speaking to its officials today every rod will be taking out every single role to be taken out manually to avoid any kind of. or avoid any kind of collision between the two rods put in a special can tell you and then buried somewhere so that it would not spread contamination at the area what can you tell us about the alleged corruption within tepco and the quds a mafia involvement in preventing proper cleanup at the site. all the allegations of corruption within the tepco company. it's something more of a speculative issue it's not being come by anyone but the involvement in the whole

process is a more concrete thing in fact i spoke to investigative journalist. who has been investigating the organization and their activities and he told me some absolutely groundbreaking stuff that at the first early stages of the fukushima disaster and the clean up operation the company's responsible for clearing up all the radioactive mass and the fallout they actually turn to the. major on the world organization in japan the obviously the world famous organization for getting more and more workers on the ground it's something of a tradition in japan has told me for instance when you have a certain construction and you need lots of workers immediately then the construction boss may easily call you back roads and ask them for more people to join the construction so this was just the case with the cleanup of the folks in the early days after the disaster it's really hard to estimate how many people were

brought in by. the sea the reorganization of the tool the fukushima area but provided me with some interesting photos. inside the fukushima daiichi plant and some of those phone some of these photos which he actually took with the secret camera inside he was watching his hand watch wrist watch. some of those people were indeed with the judging at least by their tattoos on their hands the traditional ones so the idea here was that they needed a lot of people lots of workers immediately and the only way they could have done it is to turn to the world organization what have you discovered about the radiation levels not only in fukushima but in other parts of japan. obviously japan has got too much on their hands right now with this particular new mission. to remove the fuel rods from the pools at the reactor for the nuclear daiichi nuclear

power plant but. clearly i can i can speak about the radiation levels here in japan and we've just returned from the fukushima exclusion zone we've been six kilometers to the to the nuclear power plant the final checkpoint which was on our way to the station what struck me the most and i'm saying that as a person who had been to the church of noble exclusion zone in ukraine on many many occasions more than a dozen times it's not the cities and towns which are located just ten to fifteen kilometers from the nuclear power station and obviously radiation levels are still very very high end and even lethal in some cases so those towns have been reopened for settlers we literally saw people rebuilding their houses in these areas and this is creating a huge concern in japan because i have to be honest here the radiation levels in those parts in those cities and towns are very very low i would say that they are lower than in some european cities but in some other areas sixty seventy kilometers from the nuclear power station the areas which had never been included into

exclusion zone which had never been on the lockdown radiation levels the ones we've encountered some. hotspots of radiation we've encountered had three micro. this is the same level as in the ghost town of. noble exclusion zone in ukraine the level which would not allow people humans to live in this area. those are to correspond alexy scary parting from japan and that's it for tonight guys thanks for watching us we'll see you right back here to break the sun all over again tomorrow . if you. need no opportunity. to start to construct your own little currency. no longer be bit

gives don't want to be gangstas you don't want to be drug dealers they don't want that blow with no time with the kid came be we can see. you just means i'm over there i was in i hope i was in the hood. somebody with the wrong clue. what it felt like. i said what about that. i don't want to die i just really do not want to die young young a. basis for the economic ups and downs in the final months days but none to the deal sang i and the rest because i take it will be a briefly on for me. a. deliberate

torch is on its epic journey to such a. one hundred twenty three days. through two thousand nine hundred towns and cities of russia. relayed by fourteen thousand people or sixty five thousand kilometers. in a row. setting trip by land air sea and others face. a leg torch relay. on r t r g dot com. if you look before that to see if somebody is manipulating it and presenting the palestinians is. right on the street. first street. and i think the church.

on our reporters twitter. and instagram. could be in the. hot. or not psych too active camp at guantanamo where patients are forced that. the first strike never turned the world's attention to the place that sometimes

gulag of our times. says hopeful breakthrough on the iranian nuclear issue in geneva elway diplomats from six world call us up to close a deal after decades of negotiating. crowded skies so with a fall. into american airspace i'm concerned that the huge amount of plane traffic . in danger. and of breaking the boundaries of the earth is no longer enough for the twenty fourteen olympic torch relay the symbol of the games will make a historic space walk in just a couple of hours watch it live here on our.